After leaving the Star Dou Great Forest, Chen Ming dismantled most of the grenades he carried and destroyed them piece by piece. By the time he was about to return to Nuoding City, he had already found ways to completely dispose of both his old-style firearm and the remaining explosives.
Strategically, despise the enemy. Tactically, take them seriously.
Chen Ming did not overestimate Tang San's creativity or ingenuity—but he absolutely did not underestimate his understanding of hidden weapons. The mere fact that Tang San could recreate something like the Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus meant he already had at least a foundational grasp of explosives.
If Tang San were to accidentally get his hands on firearms or grenades, Chen Ming had no doubt that, with his almost mystical mastery of hidden weapons, he could reverse-engineer them with alarming accuracy.
And if, by some twist of fate, Tang San suddenly had an epiphany—discarding the ornamental shell of the Tang Lotus and directly crafting grenades based on proper formulas…
Then the thought of Tang San running across the Douluo Continent, casually blowing things up along the way, made Chen Ming feel that his own future growth would become significantly more difficult.
Firearms had to be used sparingly—and in front of Tang San, it was best not to use them at all.
When Chen Ming returned to Nuoding City's junior Spirit Master academy, both teachers and students were stunned to see him.
Especially when he revealed his current cultivation level—and that bright yellow hundred-year soul ring—almost everyone looked at him as if he were some kind of monster.
A level ten Spirit Scholar, venturing alone into the Star Dou Great Forest to hunt a hundred-year Spirit Beast for his first ring…
That was simply inhuman.
"You really came back from the Star Dou Great Forest?" Xiao Wu circled him, looking him up and down, her eyes filled with disbelief.
As a former beast king of the forest—after all, any hundred-thousand-year Spirit Beast could be considered one—Xiao Wu understood better than most just how dangerous that place truly was.
Let alone a mere Spirit Scholar—even the academy's teachers would struggle to guarantee their safety in the outer regions of the forest.
Back when Xiao Wu first transformed into human form, it had taken great risk for Da Ming and Er Ming to secretly escort her to the outskirts of the forest. Otherwise, she wasn't even sure she could have left safely on her own.
"Here, take a look at this—my map." Chen Ming handed over the map he had purchased.
Xiao Wu studied the markings and the distribution of Spirit Beasts indicated on it, then gave a small nod. While she didn't know every corner of the forest in detail, she could tell from the general layout that this map depicted the outer regions on the side closer to the Spirit Hall.
"What kind of Spirit Beast did you kill?" she asked after a moment, poking him lightly on the shoulder.
"It looked like a giant lizard, with a horse-like head and two spiral ram horns on top. Its body was covered in yellow scales. I don't know what it was called," Chen Ming described in detail—the unfortunate creature he had blown apart with a grenade.
"That's a Dragon-Headed Lizard," Xiao Wu replied without hesitation. "It's an omnivorous high-level Spirit Beast. Among sub-dragons, it has relatively strong dragon blood, which is why its head resembles a true dragon. It's also earth-attributed, so it suits you quite well."
As a transformed Spirit Beast herself, Xiao Wu's understanding of Spirit Beasts actually surpassed that of Yu Xiaogang. Just from Chen Ming's description, she had already identified the species.
"But seriously… how did you even kill it?" she asked curiously, eyeing his relatively small frame. "That thing should've been able to swallow you in one bite."
There was no trace of sadness in her tone.
To Spirit Beasts, the cycle of hunting and being hunted was as ordinary as breathing. Although Xiao Wu herself didn't eat meat, both the Titan Giant Ape and the Azure Bull Python were omnivorous, and she had witnessed countless scenes of them feeding.
In a sense, for most high-level Spirit Beasts, aside from their own kin or mates, all other life forms were little more than weeds by the roadside.
It wasn't that powerful Spirit Beasts lacked emotions. On the contrary, their feelings could be just as intense—if not more so—than those of humans. But they often lacked empathy, treating "their own kind" and "others" with completely different extremes.
Aside from rare exceptions like the Emerald Swan—something of a benevolent outlier among Spirit Beasts, and that in the most genuine, positive sense—the vast majority of Spirit Beasts maintained, at best, a distant coexistence with one another. More often than not, their relationships could be summed up in a single phrase: live and let live, never cross paths again.
"You sure know a lot," Chen Ming remarked, narrowing his eyes slightly as he looked at Xiao Wu. "Not exactly what I'd expect from a work-study student. And just now—you recognized that map as part of the Star Dou Great Forest. Have you… been there before?"
"As for how I got that Spirit Ring…" he continued casually, as if the answer were nothing special at all, "I happened to pass by a canyon and saw an injured lizard lying there in the sun. So I pushed a big rock down from above. It crushed half its body, and the soul ring just appeared."
"Hah… is that so…" Xiao Wu gave an awkward laugh, clearly not entirely convinced. Almost immediately, she scratched her head and forced a change of subject. "You're really lucky."
"I can't fall behind either—I'm going to train!" she added hastily.
Without waiting for his response, she hopped away, leaving in a hurry.
Chen Ming watched her go, a puzzled expression on his face—but inwardly, he understood perfectly.
He wasn't entirely sure whether his explanation could fool someone like Xiao Wu, who was practically an encyclopedia of the Star Dou Great Forest. So instead of pressing the issue, he let her leave on her own terms.
In any case, from now on, no matter who asked, his answer would remain the same: he had simply gotten lucky and crushed a wounded Spirit Beast with a falling rock. As for everything else, he would reveal nothing. If pressed, it was all just good fortune—nothing more.
...
After returning to the academy to prove he wasn't dead, Chen Ming went to the Spirit Hall in the city to process his Spirit Master certification.
At the Spirit Hall branch in Nuoding City, Su Yuntao and another Spirit Master named Si Si both happened to be away on business, so the branch master, Ma Xiunuo, personally handled the matter.
When Ma Xiunuo examined Chen Ming's Martial Soul and Spirit Ring—and then compared it with the awakening record from just seven months ago—his eyes widened in shock.
Faced with such talent, he immediately extended an invitation, hoping Chen Ming would join the Spirit Hall.
Chen Ming considered it for a moment… and then refused.
It wasn't that joining the Spirit Hall was a bad choice. On the contrary, it was a powerful organization with vast resources. But joining at the level of the Nuoding City branch? That was another matter entirely.
With his current status and strength, the best outcome would be a recommendation to the Spirit Hall's main temple in the capital of the Heaven Dou Empire, where he would then have to slowly compete for opportunities from within.
Compared to that, Chen Ming found the idea of climbing the ranks step by step rather unappealing.
If he was going to make a move, he would rather go straight to Spirit City and find a way to attract the attention of the true powerholders within the Spirit Hall's headquarters.
In other words, instead of following the conventional path of grinding out seniority, he much preferred… taking a few unconventional shortcuts.
Given the knowledge in his mind and his understanding of this world, accomplishing something like that was far from impossible.
He could lure Chrysanthemum Douluo with information about immortal herbs, or entice Ghost Douluo with theories related to body-type Martial Souls. He could even attempt to showcase the concept and potential of Tool-Soul Bestialization to catch the interest of figures like Snake Lance Douluo—or even the twin Douluo, Fifteen Ton and Falling Devil.
And especially now, with the current Grand Worship of the Spirit Hall, Qian Daoliu—a man known for his stubborn principles and strict adherence to his promises—still in power, finding a way to draw his attention would yield far greater returns than wasting years climbing the ranks from the bottom.